Duplantis set for Bolt party to celebrate pole vault world record
STOCKHOLM - Sweden's Armand Duplantis said he was looking forward to a night on the town with former sprint king Usain Bolt after setting a pole vault world record of 6.28 metres at Sunday's Diamond League event in Stockholm.
Duplantis cruised through the competition, clearing his four jumps up to six metres at the first attempt before raising the bar to 6.28m to break the world record he set back in February by one centimetre.
That set up a wild night of celebrations with Bolt, who still holds the world records for the 100m and 200m distances.
"For me it's pretty cool, actually," Duplantis told Swedish broadcaster SVT. "He said if I break the world record we can party tonight, so I'm sure it's going to be a fun night with him, but I'm just so happy."
Bolt watched Thursday's Diamond League event in Oslo before taking a train to Stockholm where he said he planned to try out the nightlife.
But the two track and field stars may not be alone as Duplantis had a slew of family members in attendance in Stockholm to see him break the record for the 12th time.
"There were so many of them, it took me 10 minutes to hug them all!" Duplantis joked. "My two brothers, my mother, my grandmother and my grandfather. It's been a few years since they had been to a competition to see me. They battled to be here.
"My grandma, she wanted me to promise yesterday that I would break the world record today, so I had a lot of pressure on me to do that in front of her, and I'm glad that I could do it for her," he added. REUTERS
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